high hopes

Image Credit: Xavier.edu

He lifts and presses his fingers in an intricate play of motion and sound, and creates a masterpiece of words in beautiful imagery.  The stories speak of pain and love, hard truths and beautiful fantasies, and he sends them into the world with high hopes.  He is proud of them.  They are like his children and he is setting them free to make their own way.

Perhaps his hopes, his expectations, were too high.

The current world is not kind to beautiful things.  Sometimes it breaks them up and tears them down.  Sometimes it merely laughs for all the wrong reasons.  Occasionally, and worst of all, the world turns its back on beauty, ignoring it and letting it wither away unto death.

“Such is the sad state of our times,” the talking heads cluck before giggling about the antics of the latest internet celebrity wearing a toilet seat necklace and upside-down pants.  “What can you do?  Pander to the lowest common denominator of popular culture or face the torturous agony of certain irrelevance.”

Though, in truth, the talking heads would never speak so eloquently.  This he knows just as he knows his words, his children, are going to struggle once they leave him.  That, however, doesn’t make it any less necessary for them to be set free.  There is risk, but only with risk is there the chance for greatest success.

Perhaps his hopes, his expectations, weren’t too high.

He lifts and presses his fingers in an intricate balance of characters and worlds, spun together for the entertainment of those brave enough to read more than the standard faire provided by the money driven words industry.  There was no profit formula.  There was no demand for demographics or tired plot lines.  But, there was plenty of hope.

After all, it costs nothing to hope.

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